American Composer Gloria Coates has Died, Aged 89

Coates composed 16 full-scale symphonies, 11 string quartets, orchestral works, song cycles, and a chamber opera

Born in 1933 in Wisconsin, Gloria Coates began composing and experimenting with overtones and clusters from the age of nine — later winning a national composition contest at age 14.

She attended Louisiana State University, New York’s Cooper Union Art School, and Columbia University for postgraduate studies in music composition. Her mentors included Alexander Tcherepnin, Otto Luening, and Jack Beeson.

The composer of several symphonies, chamber music, operas, plus theater, solo, vocal, and electronic compositions, Coates reflected her love of indistinct textures and symmetry with canons, palindromes, and simple structures in her music. 

She composed the first of her 16 symphonies in 1973, titled Music on Open Strings, which became her breakthrough work, following its premiere at the 1978 Warsaw Autumn Festival.

Music on Open Strings was the most discussed work at the festival and throughout the European press. In 1986, it was a finalist for the KIRA Koussevitzky International Award for being one of the most important works to appear on record that year.

In 1980, this same work was performed in the Musica Viva Series of the Bavarian Radio in Munich, where it became the first orchestral work by a female composer to ever feature in the series.

Her work has appeared at the Berlin Festival, New Music America, Montepulciano Festival, Dresden Festival, Dartington, and the Aspekte Festival Salzburg, with artists such as the Kronos Quartet, the Kreutzer Quartet, and the Crash Ensemble Dublin. 

Ensembles that have performed her pieces include the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Polish Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Radio Bucharest Orchestra, and Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, among others.

In 1969, Coates began living in Europe, where she promoted American music by organizing a German-American Music Series, writing musicological articles, and producing broadcasts for the radio stations of Munich, Cologne, and Bremen.

From 1975 to 1983, she taught for the University of Wisconsin’s International Programs, where she initiated the first music programs in London and Munich. 

She also lectured on her music with performances across India, Poland, Germany, Ireland, England, and the U.S. at Harvard, Princeton, Brown, and Boston Universities.

“A celestial hug out to Gloria Coates, who passed away early this morning in Munich,” the GRAMMY-nominated composer Derek Bermel posted on Facebook. “Gloria was ahead of her time; she listened to her own inner voice and discovered a uniquely expressive language,” Bermel added. “She bravely trusted her instincts, but not without the angst that any composer feels in the face of occasional rejection and incomprehension. Luckily we have her bold, imaginative music to remind us of her exuberant soul.”

Our condolences to Ms. Coates’s family, friends, students, and colleagues.